Sara’s eyes fill with tears as she reads the letter, her last words from her dearest friend: ‘I’m buying you your freedom. You don’t need to ask your husband’s permission and you have to put yourself first for once. Have an incredible adventure before it’s too late for both of us…’
Sara has lost her zest for life. Trapped sharing a house with her soon-to-be-ex-husband, with grown-up children who still need her but take her for granted, working in a job where her boss bullies her, the final straw is the heartbreak of losing her beloved best friend Lainey.
But Lainey’s death could be the beginning of Sara’s new life… as the last gift Lainey gives to her friend is a sum of money and a request: that Sara travels to Italy, the scene of the pair’s youthful adventures, and scatters Lainey’s ashes on the beach at Portofino.
For once, Sara decides to be brave. She quits her job, tells her family they can manage without her, and sets off on the trip of a lifetime. Swept up by new friends and relishing the freedom of being away from home in beautiful Florence, Sara finds herself drawn to Carlo. Handsome and charming, he is everything Sara finds it so hard to be: carefree, impulsive, living in the moment without worrying about the future.
And then Sara sees something she shouldn’t… and discovers a secret about Carlo that makes her question everything she thought she knew. Stuck at a crossroads in her life and her travels, she can’t face returning home yet, but nor is she brave enough to continue the challenge that Lainey set her. And then she meets an English woman who tells her about an apartment in Rome, that could just be the answer to everything…
Return to the sunny streets of beautiful Rome with this heart-warming and romantic story about discovering your true path in life. Perfect for fans of Jill Mansell, Elin Hilderbrand and Sheila O’Flanagan.
Buy Link: Amazon: https://geni.us/B0CKLW1CG7social
Kerry Fisher is a million-copy bestselling author. She writes women’s contemporary fiction, is a USA Today bestseller and her books have been translated into twelve languages. She was born in Peterborough, studied French and Italian at the University of Bath and spent several years living in Spain, Italy and Corsica. After returning to England to work as a journalist, she eventually abandoned real life stories for the secrets of fictional families. She lives in Surrey with her husband, and a naughty Lab/Schnauzer called Poppy, who joins in the huge dances of joy when her young adult children come home.
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EXCERPT
P R O L O G U E
Lainey’s last letter was a gift and a guilt trip rolled into one.
A gift on many levels, including written confirmation that I was her best friend. Even in these circumstances, I was delighted to note that her university friend Angela hadn’t beaten me to first place, with the hand-tied posies from her garden and her ‘tone’ with the hospice nurses, as though she alone knew what Lainey needed. Petty considerations aside, I hadn’t known what to expect when the solicitor had told me Lainey had left me a letter.
I’d been surprised that my chaotic, spontaneous friend had been so organised and pragmatic about her last wishes. I could hear her voice, her words as my eyes flicked over her sentences. For the most part, her letter was the glorious summary of everything we’d done together, the recollections of one of those rare people who’d lived my history alongside me. The memories particular to someone I’d known long enough for her to have come on holiday with me and my parents. Who’d loved my guinea pig, Geronimo, who knew cheese was a sure-fire way to entice my old Labrador inside, who had the knack of the sharp kick to close our front door that swelled up in winter.
The only person who could remind me about my misadventure on the fairground waltzers after too much candy!oss, our crush on the bingo teller at Butlin’s, Lainey’s ill-advised experiment at her eighteenth birthday party with Galliano. Galliano! Who even drank that any more? I scanned her reminiscences, acutely aware that there were so many more days when we’d laughed and danced and lived. They were lost in time now, days that we didn’t know to treasure. We didn’t understand the recklessness of allowing life to fly past without pausing to commit those golden times to memory. We squandered joyful moments, letting them flutter away like fireflies, glittering against a night sky. Instances when we should have noted the heat of the summers that seemed to last forever, the euphoria of laughter that reached peak hysteria whenever my mum told us to go to sleep.
Loss obscured the warmth of the occasions she listed. When Lainey had died, people had often told me to take solace in my memories. What they forgot to tell me was that the good times smile innocently, presenting a veneer of comfort, but get too close, try to hug them too tightly and they explode in your heart. It had taken me several attempts to read all the way through, the sight of her sloping writing transporting me to school, when she’d practised her ‘married’ name to a variety of different boys on her exercise books. My eyes skimmed over the funny stuff until I reached the purpose of her letter.
So it’s up to you now to recreate the summer of ’84. Not the concert at Wembley, obviously, though I’m always up for a burst of Nik Kershaw’s ‘I Won’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me’. I breathed out, feeling the phantom weight of Lainey swaying on my shoulders, arms high above her head in the afternoon sun. Eighteen years old, just finished school, the whole summer ahead of us. We thought we’d live forever.
It’s all on you now. I want you to take me to Italy. I know this might be a big ask, but I’m hoping that enough time has elapsed that you won’t hate me for forcing you back there. Who knows, you might even lay to rest some ghosts of your own (while releasing mine – win, win!). I’m not going to suggest you return to Rome… that might be a stretch even for someone as loyal as you, but I’ve become quite taken with the idea of ending up in the sunshine on the Italian coast. Going in a box wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but it feels like a fitting tribute to the best summer of my life. Do you remember sitting by the harbour in Portofino listening to that guy play Lionel Richie’s ‘Hello’ on his guitar? Then his cousin invited us onto the yacht where he was a chef while the owners had gone ashore for the day? That day was one of those experiences that encouraged us to shed a bit of who we were, to let go of the rules that had de!ned us until then and to glimpse who we might be now we were free to choose. We’d eaten lobster, smoked Lucky Strikes, flirted and felt as though we were destined for something big. I’d never felt so cool or bohemian before. Or since, probably. We promised ourselves we would come back in the next century – it seemed soooo long until the year 2000 when we’d be thirty-four. Thirty-four! Ancient to us then. And then we never made time for it. Should have told everyone – my work, your family – they’d have to manage without us for a month. So here it is. Twenty thousand pounds. I’m buying you your freedom, my love. You don’t need to ask for Declan’s blessing. You just have to give yourself permission to put yourself first for once. The twins can wash their own pants for a few weeks. Get me to Portofino and let me loose into the sea. I kind of like the prospect of wafting about in the waves, travelling to the far corners of the earth ad infinitum. I think the afternoon we ended up on that yacht was one of the standout events of that century. Lainey and Sara living it large! I’m not sure I’d ever drunk champagne before. And that beach at San Fruttuoso with the monastery built right on the sand – no one there, just us, the chef and his cousin and a motorboat that wouldn’t start… Great memories, my friend. We had no idea what life held for us then, did we? Or how flaming short it would be! You go and live for me, my darling. Have an adventure for both of us before it’s too late. But don’t simply take me back to Italy. Use the opportunity to go where the music takes you, to live freely for a while and let your heart breathe. Con amore, see you on the other side, my friend. My lifelong friend. (Such a bummer that lifelong was nowhere near as long as we’d envisaged!) Lx
A gift of a letter. A homage to our friendship. A written record of the love that existed between us. And a guilt trip because I kept putting off the day when I’d gather my courage to go on a journey with Lainey for one last time.
Scrapping&Playing 